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CEIC Gallery/World Trend+ Database - January 6, 2016Summary
Tourism sector has long been recognized as a key engine of economic growth and integration leading towards realization of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). With the diverse, scenic, and accessible landscape, ASEAN countries attract more and more travellers from all over the world. To enchance tourism sector, ASEAN has released the ASEAN Tourism Strategic Plan (ATSP) 2011-2015 for the development of marketing strategy. In addition, AEC has improved infrastructures to create better connectivity among member states and other Asian countries that share borders for tourists to travel around ASEAN more conveniently. All these efforts has been well progressing that ASEAN has remained to be attractive destination for both regional and international tourists with the positive trends in both number of visitors and revenue.
All charts below illustrate insight and trend of tourism in ASEAN, which also can be used as a tool to monitor the effect of AEC's strategies in Tourism sector.
Chart 1 & 2
Chart 1 indicates that the number of visitors in ASEAN has continuously increased recently with the number of extra-ASEAN tourists slightly more than intra-ASEAN tourists.
Chart 2 displays the proportion of the number of visitors in ASEAN. Top 3 countries with the highest visitor arrivals are Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore, respectively.
Chart 3 & 4
Both ASEAN's tourism revenue and visitor arrivals has significantly rose after the slowdown in financial crisis (2009). In 2014, ASEAN's tourism revenue is noticeably more than China, while the number of visitors in China is greater than ASEAN. This can be implied that averaged spending per person in ASEAN is higher than in China.
Chart 6-9
Chart 6-9 shows the comparison and trend of visitor arrivals to ASEAN by means of transport. From Chart 6 - 9, it is noticeably that number of visitor arrivals in Thailand declined in all means of transport in 2014, caused by internal political instability situations.
(note: data is available for Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam)
Chart 10-13
Chart 10-13 shows the comparison and trend of tourisim revenue and % of nominal GDP in ASEAN.
After the slowdown due to the crisis in 2009, ASEAN's tourism has progressively recoverd with a continue positive trend. Among ASEAN countries, Thailand received largest tourism revenue, follow by Malaysia and Singapore respectively. In 2001-2014, Cambodia has the highest tourism revenue to GDP ratio compared to other member states.
Chart 14-17
Chart 14-17 shows the comparison and trend of tourisim expenditures and % of nominal GDP in ASEAN.
Compare to other member states, Singapore has the highest tourism expenditures (2005-2012: data for 2010-2011 is not available) and % of nominal GDP (1995-2013).
Chart 19 & 20
Chart 19 & 20 shows the comparison and trend of hotel room occupancy rate and average length of stay among ASEAN member states. Singapore ranked the highest in the occupancy of hotel room, and in 2014, Thailand's hotel room occupancy rate dropped to stay at the lowest among other member states due to political instability issue. However, on average, in Thailand, tourists spend longest time staying during their journey.
Chart 21 & 22
Chart 21 & 22 shows the comparison and trend of visitor arrivals by country/region of origin in ASEAN.
Beside visitors from ASEAN countries which has the greatest proportion of visitors in ASEAN, China ranked the hightest among other countries, follow by EU-28 and Japan respectively.
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As of 2016 the population of the 28 members of the European Union amounted to 511.5mn people or around 69% of the total population of the continent. While the majority of the EU countries are held in high regard in terms of their quality of life, there are considerable demographic issues that have been bothering the EU for decades – low birth rates, ageing population and high emigration.